Seven Dublin men have been cleared of IRA membership by the Special Criminal Court after the DPP said it would offer no further evidence in the case.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding at the non-jury court, directed the seven men be acquitted after prosecution counsel Tara Burns SC said the DPP would not be offering any more evidence in light of the court’s ruling last week that the arrests of six of the men were unlawful.
The seven men are: Brian Nick McBennett (54) of Ard Collum Avenue, Artane; Peter Burns (39) of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Kevin Braney (39) also of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght; Michael Barr (33) of Carlton Court, Poppintree, Ballymun; John Brock (41) of Glenview Park, Tallaght; Declan Phelan (31) of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght and Desmond Christie (49) of Liam Mellows Road, Finglas.
Each of the men had pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on July 3rd, 2013.
Last Friday, the Special Criminal Court ruled the arrests of six of the men at a house in Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght were unlawful.
Mr Justice Hunt said that in each of the six cases, they fell short of a “modest level of necessary objective justification” for a Section 30 Offences Against the State Act arrest on suspicion of IRA membership as explained by the Supreme Court in the Walshe v Fennessy case in 2003.
The seventh man, Peter Burns, did not challenge the legality of his arrest.
Ms Burns asked that the court direct an acquittal in relation to the each of the accused.
The court previously heard gardaí found two packages containing tightly-folded paper wrapped in clingfilm that were allegedly communications from prisoners in Portlaoise Prison on a coffee table in a front room where the seven men were gathered.